Patrick Dempsey Explains Why He’s Not Returning for ‘Scream 7’ (EXCLUSIVE)

Patrick Dempsey wanted to return for “Scream 7.”

In October, he said there had been “a conversation” about him rejoining the horror franchise.

Dempsey told the Today show, “I’m waiting on the script, I haven’t seen anything yet. So we’ll see what happens.”

Then it was revealed in January that Dempsey would not be playing detective Mark Kincaid again.

So what happened?

“It just didn’t work out and we were dealing with the fires and everything that was going on and the schedule didn’t work out, unfortunately,” Dempsey, who lives in Malibu, told me exclusive Saturday night at Chanel and Charles Finch’s annual pre-Oscar dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) referred to her husband as Mark in “Scream 5” so fans assumed he must be Mark Kincaid. However, it was announced earlier this year that Joel McHale was playing Sydney’s husband, Mark Kincaid.

Original cast members Campbell and Courteney Cox are returning for “Scream 7” and so is Matthew Lillard, whose character died in the first “Scream” after it was revealed he was one of the two killers.

Mason Gooding and Jasmin Savoy Brown, who appeared in the fifth and six installments as siblings, are also coming back. New cast members include Isabel May, Mark Consuelos, Asa Germann, Mckenna Grace, Sam Rechner and Anna Camp.

Kevin Williamson, who first the wrote “Scream,” makes his “Scream” directorial debut with the seventh film.

Gooding teased the new “Scream” when I talked to him in early February at the premiere of his latest horror movie “Heart Eyes.” “It feels like an amplification of what’s came before, and there’s no better indication of that than Kevin Williamson, who wrote the original, coming back now to direct,” he said. “I think that Ghostface is absolutely the most brutal he’s been. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there’s some stuff that they do to the human body that I feel like Kevin is breaking new ground with.”

He also said, “There was a prosthetic that sat in the makeup trailer that actually turned my stomach over.”

“Scream 7” is slated to release in theaters on Feb. 27, 2026. Paramount Pictures will distribute the film, which Spyglass Media is producing.